By Bill Forry

Even in the Boston City Council, where the word "team" is rarely heard, Charles Yancey has always been the member most likely to secede.

The Hooper Street man thrives as the soloist, the guy who'll never make a deal. When the council picks a president, Yancey votes for himself every year without fail.

As the senior minority member of the council, Yancey staked out his ground as City Hall's resident contrarian.

And at one time, it made sense. His renegade reputation was valued in the heavily black Fourth district. For years, he really was the lone outpost of black Boston in what was often a hostile, right-wing, white-controlled city.

But, that time has passed Charles Yancey by.

It's no longer good enough just to bust chops and fight the good fight. Not when you have Chuck Turner on board and Felix Arroyo, two bona fide community activists who have, for the moment at least, utterly overshadowed Yancey when it comes to the far-left issues of the day.

Turner gets arrested to protest MCAS testing. Arroyo skips lunch and dinner to protest the war.

Yancey? He puts out a press release.

One of his classics came last November, when Yancey verbally mauled Maureen Feeney, his council colleague from Dorchester. Yancey hit the roof when he learned he was losing some precincts in Mattapan under a plan Feeney devised - and went straight for the jugular, calling Feeney "underhanded, sneaky and deceitful."

Now he wonders why Feeney is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his chief challenger, Ego Ezedi?

And while Feeney's outward support for a fellow incumbent's foe is unusual, she's not alone. Hyde Park's Rob Consalvo is breaking ranks with Yancey, too, along with council President Mike Flaherty. Senator Jack Hart, whose district includes most of the Fourth seat, is behind Ezedi as well (see Editor's note below). Reports in the Bay State Banner suggest that Mayor Tom Menino's political machine is also lining up support for the newcomer.

Predictably, Yancey is trying to spin the support of white politicians into a positive for his late-starting campaign. With a wink and a nod, Yancey hopes his old-school black base will read the Ezedi candidacy as a veiled take-over by Menino and company.

Sadly, it'll probably help Yancey come election day. But, it says here that the race card won't be enough to turn the tide this time. There are too many people who actually live in the Fourth who want more results from their city councillor.

At the end of the day, it's not that Charles Yancey's made too many enemies. He's actually a pretty good guy. It's just that, after twenty years in office, he doesn't have enough friends. And he can't blame that on anyone but himself.

Editor's Note: A spokesperson for Senator Jack Hart on Thursday disputed the information in this column that Sen. Hart is backing Ego Ezedi in his race for the Fourth city council seat. In fact, according to Hart's aide Rosemary Powers, the Senator is remaining neutral. Another aide, Nathan Pham, who was present for Ezedi's campaign kick-off event in July, was not there representing Hart, according to Powers. Also, an Ezedi press advisory listing Hart as one of the elected officials expected to join Ezedi in his kick-off, was incorrect, Powers says.

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Hit and Run City

Don't look now, but the early summer crime wave, punctuated by the shooting of Kai Leigh Harriett before Independence Day, has cooled off. A lot.

It's something that many of us have noticed, but - in true city cynic fashion - have chosen to ignore for fear of another sudden spike. Number Area C-11 police Captain Tom Lee among those who'd rather not be reminded of the slowdown.

"The summer's not over yet," Lee warned this week when we inquired.

When pressed, though, Lee admits that the buzz at the Gibson Street station and among community crime-watchers is that things have "calmed down." After the Harriett shooting, the cops poured a ton of extra personnel into Bowdoin-Geneva, where, for two weeks in late June and early July, things seemed to be getting out of control.

Over a week-long period at the turn of the month, though, police statistics bear out a slow-down in gun violence on C-11, Dorchester's biggest and busiest district (see log list on page 22). There was one 'shots fired' report on Mallon Road off Bowdoin Street on the 31st, with no report of injury. There was another incident on the 27th of July that came in as a firearm assault on Train Street. Other than that, C-11 was bullet-free, based on the police reports. That doesn't mean that our problems are gone - just that the gun activity has gone down significantly, to everyone's relief.

In another good sign, on July 31, police were tipped off to a Hamilton Street address, where they found a young man with a rifle hidden down one of his pantlegs. The subsequent arrest was not big news, but it marked another in a string of victories last month, which included the capture of John Gomes, who fled town after allegedly gunning down a Meetinghouse Hill man last summer. Gomes, who was caught in Florida, will face the murder rap in a trial that starts later this month.

Of course, if it's not one thing around here, it's another. Lately, a rash of hit-and-run car accidents has become the bane of Captain Lee's existence - and, by extension, everyone else's, too. During the same one-week period ending August 3rd, there were 33 hit-and-runs reported on C-11. Four of those involved personal injuries, including the horrific incident on Topliff Street that fatally injured 15-year-old bicyclist Paris Booker last Thursday. Police quickly found the alleged driver: another Dorchester man from East Cottage Street. Meanwhile, the heartless murderer who dragged Savin Hill's Richard Miller to death in front of Ashmont Station on July 13 remains at large.

Judging by the stats, at the moment, Dorchester people have far more to fear from crazy drivers this summer than from crazed gunmen. Captain Lee's ordered his patrol cars to crack down on speeders in response to the incidents. And he's also increased the frequency of Operation Crosswalk, a sting that uses plainclothes cops to nail motorists who blow past pedestrians. The fine, at $100, is steep and designed to make overly-aggresive drivers think twice.

Most people involved in hit-and-runs like the one that killed Paris Booker, Lee says, aren't hard-core criminals. They're not necessarily worried about insurance bills or traffic tickets, either. They're chronic speeders who panic and make a dumb, and potentially costly, decision to "screw." Lee's strategy is to target speeders with his division's "Harry Tango" cars - specialized patrols that target high visibility traffic spots. Only trouble is, as Lee admits, pretty much the whole district is plagued with chronic and reckless speeders.

One option that should be explored, Lee thinks, is through the Legislature. Until Tuesday night, when Paris Booker succumbed to his injuries in Boston Medical Center, the man who allegedly mowed him down was facing only a misdemeanor charge. The victim has to die in order for the charges to reach a felony level. If Booker had survived, the accused would've faced a maximum two years in jail, if that.

Accidents can be traumatizing for everyone involved. And most of us can recall a close call or two with wayward or out-to-lunch jaywalkers, especially in this town. But there's no excuse for leaving a teen to die on the side of the road. Even if the motorist feels he's in danger - from retaliation by angry neighbors of the victim, perhaps - the driver is obligated, at the very least, to report the accident immediately by going straight to the police or picking up the phone. It's time that the lawmakers help the lawmen by putting some teeth into the sentencing guidelines for hit-and-runners before this rash turns into an epidemic.